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Do you think the 2000s and the part of the '10s that has past are culturally distinct from the 1990s? Personally I think we're still in the nineties in a cultural sense and here is why.
I was thinking how the major tropes of the nineties, the things that made the nineties different from the eighties, for the most part are still going strong, and in some cases are actually even bigger today, 12 years after the end of the nineties, than they were in the nineties themselves!
Examples. Baggy pants. Skinny jeans have replaced them to some extent, but there's still plenty of people who sag like it's still 1992, people who weren't even alive in 1992.
The Simpsons. First aired in December 1989 actually. A 90s icon. Still on the air today, and despite the fact many people stopped watching it around 2000, it's still relevant to today's society and extremely popular.
Ditto with South Park, which started in 1997. There are 14 year old kids today who were only just born when South Park came out and love it. The show is still extremely popular, probably only slightly less popular than it was in 1998.
Reruns of Seinfeld and Friends beat most currently running sitcoms in ratings. People's taste in television in the years 2000-2012 is basically identical to what people enjoyed in the '90s.
Rap music has proven not to be a trend but a decades-long, multi-generational phenomenon that might enjoy extremely high levels of popularity well into this century. Same with tattoos and body piercings - not going away anytime soon most likely, if anything eventually it will probably become rare for a person not to have at least one kind of body mod. Even my 52 year old dad has been converted to the cult of the tattoo.
The decline of so-called 'polite society' also I think really accelerated in the early 90s and continues to this day. Before the '90s, only certain kinds of people used profanity, today, pretty much everyone does. Formal dress is only for valet and politicians. I think that in the '90s people became generally more sarcastic and aggressive too, as well as more depressed, and that has gotten even worse in the past 12 years.
And even though the '90s are now 20 years ago, well, the early 90s, the focus on nostalgia is still rightly the '80s because it's the most recent time that had a culture that does not extend into the present moment.
I think since 2008, something authentically new has been forming, but it's still overshadowed by the continuing tropes of the 1990s.
That's not to say the 1990s were exactly like today. They were actually quite different. But that's really just because the nineties still had so much stuff from the eighties that was still popular and relevant. I'm just saying the trends that started in the nineties are for the most part, still going strong. There's never been a backlash against '90s culture - we went straight from loving the 90s while it was still the present to being nostalgic about the 90s.
Heck, we still have plenty of stuff left from the 60's. Society continues with the parts they like and discards the parts that no longer fits. The longer time goes by, the more stuff we have to choose from and goof with.
Do you think the 2000s and the part of the '10s that has past are culturally distinct from the 1990s? Personally I think we're still in the nineties in a cultural sense and here is why.
I was thinking how the major tropes of the nineties, the things that made the nineties different from the eighties, for the most part are still going strong, and in some cases are actually even bigger today, 12 years after the end of the nineties, than they were in the nineties themselves!
Examples. Baggy pants. Skinny jeans have replaced them to some extent, but there's still plenty of people who sag like it's still 1992, people who weren't even alive in 1992.
The Simpsons. First aired in December 1989 actually. A 90s icon. Still on the air today, and despite the fact many people stopped watching it around 2000, it's still relevant to today's society and extremely popular.
Ditto with South Park, which started in 1997. There are 14 year old kids today who were only just born when South Park came out and love it. The show is still extremely popular, probably only slightly less popular than it was in 1998.
Reruns of Seinfeld and Friends beat most currently running sitcoms in ratings. People's taste in television in the years 2000-2012 is basically identical to what people enjoyed in the '90s.
Rap music has proven not to be a trend but a decades-long, multi-generational phenomenon that might enjoy extremely high levels of popularity well into this century. Same with tattoos and body piercings - not going away anytime soon most likely, if anything eventually it will probably become rare for a person not to have at least one kind of body mod. Even my 52 year old dad has been converted to the cult of the tattoo.
The decline of so-called 'polite society' also I think really accelerated in the early 90s and continues to this day. Before the '90s, only certain kinds of people used profanity, today, pretty much everyone does. Formal dress is only for valet and politicians. I think that in the '90s people became generally more sarcastic and aggressive too, as well as more depressed, and that has gotten even worse in the past 12 years.
And even though the '90s are now 20 years ago, well, the early 90s, the focus on nostalgia is still rightly the '80s because it's the most recent time that had a culture that does not extend into the present moment.
I think since 2008, something authentically new has been forming, but it's still overshadowed by the continuing tropes of the 1990s.
That's not to say the 1990s were exactly like today. They were actually quite different. But that's really just because the nineties still had so much stuff from the eighties that was still popular and relevant. I'm just saying the trends that started in the nineties are for the most part, still going strong. There's never been a backlash against '90s culture - we went straight from loving the 90s while it was still the present to being nostalgic about the 90s.
here in nepa we have all the decades--ideas and clothes from the 90's,hairdos and music from the 80's,many choices of housing and store decor from the 70's,and nepotism and refusal to accept new ideas from the 60's and 50's---the only thing that is showing up from the 2000's is fear of those people from other countries(and ny,nj)coming here
Some elements of the pop-culture have stayed the same, or stagnated, but really I think the 2000s was a good deal unlike the 1990s.
In the 1990s lots of the TV shows were "shows about nothing." There were big things happening in the world, but we mostly ignored them and that showed in some of the culture. A good deal of TV was about witty single people in, or from, New York or Boston. They were usually white as well.
In the 2000s the reality of the world beyond the US, and beyond affluent US, became painfully real. There was 24, for example. And in sitcoms there's been some shift away from "witty unmarried New Yorkers who don't really care about anything." ABC has had success with family sitcoms, which seemed almost dead at one point in the 1990s. NBC, the home of "single hip NYC" series, had critical acclaim with The Office which began as a series about thoroughly non-glamorous people in a smallish city. Additionally some of said people were married and, unlike NBC sitcoms of the 1990s, Black or Asian. (To be honest Scranton of The Office looks a good deal more diverse than the stats I find for the actual Scranton) Also you had the rise of reality TV. In particular the "rags to riches" series like American Idol became a juggernaut. And maybe affected music by moving things even more pop. The 1990s of grunge, slacker rock, retro-swing, etc largely declined I think.
The U.S. got caught in a weird time warp after 9/11. I don't know why the clock stopped for sure, but it did for the next 8 years.
There was so much of the 90's that went on after 2001- the Towers had been attacked before in the 90's, we had a President Bush in the 90's, our responses to so many things were like those in the 90's, fashions, music, and popular entertainment all stayed about the same, and we were all very pre-occupied with the past and immediate present.
And then, all of a sudden, the 90's were a decade in our past, and we hadn't even got used to our present. We all got pulled suddenly into the 21st Century 10 years late. It was like our society was hooked onto a big rubber band that stretched until it broke and snapped us into what we thought was the future. But it wasn't the future- it was today.
And way too many of us are still living back in the 20th Century, even though we are now in the second decade of the 21st. I wonder if times were similar to this when the 20th Century turned. Probably so, but everything was on the edge of big changes back then, too.
Examples. Baggy pants. Skinny jeans have replaced them to some extent, but there's still plenty of people who sag like it's still 1992, people who weren't even alive in 1992.
That's a terrible example because people that sag has no clue that it started as a way for prisoners to indicate they wanted sex. That's not a culture thing, it is a dumbass fashion that some people still engage in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kelsius
The Simpsons. First aired in December 1989 actually. A 90s icon. Still on the air today, and despite the fact many people stopped watching it around 2000, it's still relevant to today's society and extremely popular.
Ditto with South Park, which started in 1997. There are 14 year old kids today who were only just born when South Park came out and love it. The show is still extremely popular, probably only slightly less popular than it was in 1998.
Those shows are still relevant because they evolve as culture evolves. Both shows tackle current events and that is why they are still relevant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kelsius
Reruns of Seinfeld and Friends beat most currently running sitcoms in ratings. People's taste in television in the years 2000-2012 is basically identical to what people enjoyed in the '90s.
That's because the TV industry is in a weird place where reality shows took over in the 2000s but they are running out of ideas. We are starting to see reality TV fade from network and cable TV though and originality return. If anything, this example shows a sharp contrast between the 90s and 00s as TV was far different in the 00s than it was in the 90s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kelsius
Rap music has proven not to be a trend but a decades-long, multi-generational phenomenon that might enjoy extremely high levels of popularity well into this century. Same with tattoos and body piercings - not going away anytime soon most likely, if anything eventually it will probably become rare for a person not to have at least one kind of body mod. Even my 52 year old dad has been converted to the cult of the tattoo.
Rap music started in the 80s but just like any genre music, it has evolved a lot since then. The rap music from the 90s and the rap music today isnt anything alike. They are way different much like rock music from the 90s is much different than the rock music today. That is a very poor example.
The 90s was a brilliant decade for music, this last decade the music kind of downgraded and the change in the music industry wasnt really with the music itself but going from hard copy mediums to digital. I have high hopes that we will see some good changes in music this decade.
Tattoos and piercings have been around since the beginning of human beings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kelsius
The decline of so-called 'polite society' also I think really accelerated in the early 90s and continues to this day. Before the '90s, only certain kinds of people used profanity, today, pretty much everyone does. Formal dress is only for valet and politicians. I think that in the '90s people became generally more sarcastic and aggressive too, as well as more depressed, and that has gotten even worse in the past 12 years.
This goes back to before the 90s.
I am sorry but if you think we are still in the nineties, you havent been paying attention. In the 90s, the economy was booming, everyone was working, there was a huge evolution with the internet, we were war free, and entertainment such as movies and music took huge steps.
The 00s were a sharp contrast to that. We have basically been in a economic slump since '01, we have been engaged in war for a decade, entertainment and art went completely stagnant except for the use of technology within, and the digital age become dominant.
The decades are no more or less different than any other connecting decades. There is always going to be overlap but the 00s are as different from the 90s as the 80s were.
Popular culture is employed to "bring" certain foundational myths and stereotypes to the masses. If a social order for the certain sets of Pavlovian reflexes and stereotypes stay the same, why do you expect mass culture to change dramatically? It will not. Stereotyping & conditioned reflex enforcement delivered by American mass cult is so intense, it makes me wonder if there is "Central American Mass Culture Command" out there, there is nothing "random" about mass cult. Pop arts create information noise and illusion of reality. Low income crowds attack Wal-Mart electronics section on Black Fridays (instead of food isles) to get their fix of illusion. How ironic is that?
I think that 90s were apex of liberal consumer capitalism and there is only certain kind of mass culture messages and illusions that serves that particular social order. Since, there were no dramatic changes in the "social order" and/or mass "unauthorized" social movements (unlike 60s, 70s or even 80s with its "greed is good") mass culture seems stagnant. On TV everything stays the same - upper middle class settings, disconnected individuals unable to make connections with anything or anybody pursuing their "dreams", dumb males and exceedingly rare working/serving types working their way up, and so on. Yes, 2000-2010 saw spike in cop shows, forensic shows, military shows and corresponding message of reverence for all-protective authority that can do no wrong. Genuinely poignant social satire (a rare guest even before) seems gone extinct (just in case). Rap music and its degenerative messages is going strong. Yup, why not? How else one would you keep excess ghetto population in check? Appealing to the lowest animal like individualistic urges seems redirect frustrations of ghetto and rust belt youth just fine.
I was born in 1987, so I guess my views need to be seen with a grain of salt, but the 1990s in no way shape or form feel like today. Rock music in the 1990s was florishing after a absolutley horrific 1980s (1980s almost killed rock n roll). Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Helmet, Pearl Jam and many more brought rock back from the dead. House music was huge as was Eurodance and both have been replaced by DubStep (which is horrible).
The 1990s were more innocent, more colorful (in terms of personality), and seemed more fun. Everyone's dream was to either be a NYC Hipster, A California tech god or be part of a boy band. Silly? Perhaps, but I'll take that over the paranoia and stagnation of the 2000s.
I was born in 1987, so I guess my views need to be seen with a grain of salt, but the 1990s in no way shape or form feel like today. Rock music in the 1990s was florishing after a absolutley horrific 1980s (1980s almost killed rock n roll). Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Helmet, Pearl Jam and many more brought rock back from the dead. House music was huge as was Eurodance and both have been replaced by DubStep (which is horrible).
The 1990s were more innocent, more colorful (in terms of personality), and seemed more fun. Everyone's dream was to either be a NYC Hipster, A California tech god or be part of a boy band. Silly? Perhaps, but I'll take that over the paranoia and stagnation of the 2000s.
I was young during this time. Grunge came in,Glam metal began to die, And NYC was dangerous yet the world at large seemed more stable. I had my first girlfriend and still used and bought music on an ancient format that was called the cassette.Computers were still clunky machines, And the most cool of us had beepers. Pay phones mostly worked but you needed a hazmat suit to use. I remember Vanilla ice and Color me Badd being blasted around the neighborhood (Gravesend, Brooklyn)from Monte Carlo T-tops with guys that had spiked hair and drove 3 feet back from the staring wheel with one hand. The other was draped over their girl with the heavily coiffed-can of hairspray hair.They used to chase us away at the mere thought of us looking at their spandex clad honey. It was a time of discovery for me as I was on my own by 1996. That year changed everything for me.
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